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green vegetables.
    Antony had his tale ready. His name was Piet Maartens, and he had been working on a bulb farm—“but of course they’re broke like everyone else, and I haven’t had a smell of work since you know when.”
    The man was gloomy enough about the chances of a job. “But of course if you’ve got friends in the town, they may be able to do something for you.”
    Antony said he had an aunt there, a very good sort of a woman. “Keeps an eating-house, and she used to have very decent beer, but I suppose that’s gone where everything else goes nowadays.”
    The man had a good deal to say about that. He expressed himself with freedom, and hoped that the Dutch beer would choke the Germans who had stolen it.
    They went on very comfortably like this, and Antony was pleased to find that his Dutch was passing muster. He did not say more than he could help, and once he had got the man going on the beer shortage there was really no occasion for him to talk.
    They came into the town with the subject still not exhausted. Antony said thank you for his lift and dropped off.
    Twenty minutes later, when he came into the eating-house kept by Vrouw Brandt, there were a few people there having coffee, or what passed for coffee nowadays. Vrouw Brandt was at the back of the room—a large comely woman with red hair shining in waves all over her head, and a complexion which still bore the light of early morning. She had grown stout, and she would never see forty-five again, but she was a fine figure of a woman and she knew it.
    Antony walked in in his shabby country clothes with the dirt of the ditch on his hands, slipped an arm round her waist, and bent to kiss her cheek.
    â€œWell, Tante, here’s your Piet back like a bad penny.” He had come upon her unawares. She stood sideways to the room polishing china with a white linen cloth. He felt her stiffen, and wondered for a moment whether he was going to get his ears boxed—it wouldn’t have been for the first time. Her hand lifted with the cloth in it, but it fell again. She pulled free and stamped an angry foot.
    â€œGood for nothing that you are, to come creeping in like a thief and scare me out of my life!”
    He sat down on the edge of the serving-table and smiled the smile with which he had coaxed her for gingerbread when he was eight and she the tyrant of his mother’s kitchen. She had melted to it then, and had continued to do so ever since.
    â€œPleasant surprise never kills, dear Aunt.”
    â€œPleasant?” She tossed her head. “And what’s pleasant about you turning up, I’d like to know! Out of a job too, by the look of you.”
    Antony nodded. “I’ve walked my legs off, and I’m hungry.”
    And this was true enough. Even the substitute coffee smelt like a beautiful dream.
    Anna Brandt took up a cup and set it upon its saucer. Her glance travelled over him with disfavour from the unshaved chin, past the dirty hands, to the muddy boots. There was a large patch on one of them—a piece of corroborative detail which he could have done without. If it hadn’t already rubbed a blister, it was going to the next time he had to walk a mile. She said in angry voice,
    â€œNo one eats food in my house with hands like that! And half the mud of the road on your feet! Get in and wash! You know the way.”
    He was scrubbing his hands at the sink when she came through to him.
    â€œAre you mad, Mijnheer?”
    He looked up, grinning.
    â€œPiet, Tante Anna, and don’t forget it.”
    She made an impatient gesture.
    â€œThere’s no one here. The girl has gone to the market, and I can tell you she doesn’t hurry herself to get back. Why have you come? You are quite mad. When you did it before—well, it would pass as a joke. We hadn’t these German pigs in the country then, and the worst that could happen would be a bit of gossip among the